


lance is a five letter word for love

by orphan_account



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Fix-It, One Shot Collection, background klance, background/implied romellura, voltron season 7
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-16
Updated: 2018-08-16
Packaged: 2019-06-28 00:26:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15696447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: The paladins had finally, finally made it back to Earth. Lance couldn’t say it was everything he’d dreamed it would be - coming back to find Earth occupied and nearly defenseless was jarring at best - but in the moments between seeing his family for the first time in years, to being wrapped in a group hug so tight he couldn’t break free if he wanted to, Lance felt then that everything was right.or: a series of Lance-centric one shots that attempt to ease the deep depression s7 caused me





	lance is a five letter word for love

**Author's Note:**

> slips in w canon but tweaked bc it's nicer on the soul. adam isn't dead bc fuck voltron's qbaiting that's why. lance centric because i love him. also no one calls him stupid (fixed that too youre welcome) bc he's smart and deserves respect. have a blast reading!

Before the paladins left the planet that had altogether too many Yalmors, Lance pulled Allura aside.

“Hey,” he said, “how are you holding up?” His casual demeanor didn’t match the concern in his eyes, a detail which Allura picked up on.

“Fine,” she said anyway, when she was anything but. “I’m faring just as well as anyone else is, under the circumstances.”

“Allura,” said Lance sincerely, gently reaching out to touch her arm. “You don’t have to be strong for the rest of us. It’s ok to be hurting, especially after Lotor.”

She broke eye contact at the mention of his name.

“I’m sorry,” continued Lance. “I won’t push if you’re not ready. I just don’t want you to think you can’t talk about your feelings. If you need anything, just ask, ok?”

“Thank you, Lance,” Allura said, smiling for the first time since… actually, Lance couldn’t remember, which worried him.

He squeezed her arm then withdrew his hand, smiling back at her. “Anytime, Princess.”

“Actually…” she said, then faltered.

“Yeah?”

“I am a bit… lonely. With the long voyage ahead of us, I don’t want to have no one. I know that you’re all there on the coms, of course, and so is Blue, but open space can just be…”

“I know,” said Lance. “And don’t worry about it, ok? I’m nothing if not a man with a plan.”

He winked at her and then the two of them wandered back over to the main group, where the paladins were arguing over seating arrangements.

“All I know is I can’t _not_ have my personal space - ”

“What, like the lion doesn’t have the room?”

“I need my me time - ”

“What about the wolf?”

“I will _not_ have a wolf in my lion! What about the mice?”

“Guys. Guys! Don’t worry about it,” Lance said. “I know the perfect way to arrange the seating.”

“Then hit us up,” said Pidge, leaning further back in her seat with her arms crossed.

“Easy. Shiro and Krolia with Keith, the mice and Kaltenecker with Hunk, Romelle with Allura, Coran with Pidge, and the wolf with me.”

“Huh,” said Coran, stroking his mustache. “I like it! Everyone, load the lions!”

With considerably less grumbling than before, the team headed for their respective lions. Lance caught Romelle’s eye and waggled his eyebrows at her with a knowing look at Allura, causing her to blush and pointedly stomp away from him.

Allura, unaware of the exchange, followed Romelle to Blue and also happened to make eye contact with Lance. _Thank you_ , she mouthed, relieved.

 _No problem,_ he mouthed back, then, _I told you I’m the best_ , complete with finger guns.

She rolled her eyes in return, but when she jogged to catch up with Romelle, Lance saw some of the tension leave her shoulders as the two Alteans began to talk, and he let himself smile.

***

Team Voltron found themselves captured by Ezor, Zethrid, and Acxa, because of course they were. Lance had tried every trick in the book, too, looking for secret passages and hollowed out panels, but of _course_ the Galra would be so boring that they wouldn’t have fun weaknesses for a super spy to exploit. It didn’t bother him too much, though. It’s not as though Lance fully expected to find a secret exit (though it would be really cool); if he could keep his friends preoccupied in a tense situation then it was a job well done.

It was going pretty well, too. He even got normally tight-wound Pidge to play along, and then Krolia, who was thoroughly perplexed by Earthling movie tropes and landed herself firmly on the list for movie-marathon-night.

It was almost fun and games, until it wasn’t. The three Galra generals made their appearance, and it was pretty clear that playing nice was the last thing on their minds.

Though, to be fair, for them it had been three years since the Lotor fiasco, a revelation which was news to the paladins. Lance was willing to cut them some slack for being such bad hosts, until they crossed a line.

Ezor threatened Pidge.

“Don’t you touch her!” screamed Lance, and he was flung to the side like he was nothing. The rest of his team started shouting in response as Pidge was lifted off her feet, but his head throbbed and sound was warbled to his ears.

“Hey!” A sharp voice protruded through the bubble over his ears, and he felt a clawed hand grip under his arm, helping him to stand. “Why don’t we calm down.” It was a command, not a question. Unfortunately, Ezor was having none of it.

“Shut it, Acxa!” she said, still holding Pidge in the air. “You’ve always been too soft.”

“I’m not soft; I just have the _common sense_ to know when we’ve been told all they know.”

“Aww, isn’t that cute,” Ezor said, turning to Zethrid. “Acxa thinks that if we ask politely, any answer we get can be trusted! Because we and Voltron have _such_ a good history.”

Lance was pretty sure Acxa literally snarled in frustration. The three Galra generals regarded each other suspiciously, and all hell might have broke loose were it not for the alarm that began to blare.

“Quiznak!” Zethrid swore. “We’re gonna have to table this discussion. Ezor, you take the guards outside and handle that alarm. Acxa and I will stay here.”

She didn’t seem thrilled, but Ezor dropped Pidge, who scrambled to rejoin the other paladins. That left Zethrid and Acxa, who were staring each other down in a silent battle of wills. Lance wasn’t looking at them, though; he was staring at Keith, whose eyes were closed in intense concentration.

“Acxa,” said Zethrid, but she didn’t get to complete her thought because a beam of light bolted through the cell and into Keith’s hand, reforming itself as his bayard.

Zethrid leaped into action, Keith had the element of surprise and knocked her across the room. “Go!” he shouted through gritted teeth.

The team dashed for the door, unstopped by Acxa, who stood motionless to the side. Only Lance lingered at the doorway.

“Keith,” he ventured, but the black paladin was engaged in combat.

Acxa heaved a deep sigh. “Don’t worry,” she said to Lance. “Get your friend and leave.”

“Really? Uh, no offense, but why?”

“Because they’re my crew and my responsibility. Trust me, I’ll handle Zethrid,” she said, unsheathing her weapon.

“Oh, _handle_ me, will you!” Zethrid roared, rising to the bait and launching herself at Acxa, and giving Keith his window to dash for the door.

“Let’s go,” he said, and the paladins turned away from a fight between friends and ran for their lions.

***

“Aww, how romantic,” Bob, the immortal - and immoral, in Lance’s opinion - Garfle Warfle Snick host cooed. “The love birds choose each other.”

“Wha- Keith and- no, buddy you got it all mixed-” Lance sputtered. Keith turned a magnificent shade of red so dark it might as well have been purple.

“Pidge, you’re the smart one. It all comes down to you. Who’d you pick?” continued Bob, completely ignoring the distress he’d just created.

In the tension, Lance stopped trying to justify himself, and Keith’s face returned to it’s normal, somewhat pasty complexion. Pidge picked Hunk, Bob declared the paladins victorious, and they all woke up in the cockpits as though nothing had ever happened.

“Bob is a legend!” Coran had declared. “It’s said that he’s an all-powerful, all-knowing, inter-dimensional being who judges the worthiness of great warriors.”

“But we can agree, he was a huge jerk, right?” Keith had said, the other paladins had laughed their agreement, and they continued the silent voyage through space.

For someone whose thoughts were firing at about a million per tick, the silence was crushing Lance. He made it about six dobashes before opening a private line.

“Keith?”

“Yeah?”

“I just wanted to say about, you know, earlier.”

“Earlier?”

“You know,” Lance said through gritted teeth. “The thing that Bob said. About us.”

“Did it bother you?” Lance could practically hear the confused frown over the line.

“No- I mean yes- I mean, maybe? I just wanted to make sure that you weren’t, you know, uncomfortable, I guess.”

A murmur through the line was his reply.

“Because we’re not, lovebirds I mean, and I didn’t want it to be weird or something. So.”

Keith harrumphed a small laugh. “It’s not weird. I guess even all-knowing gods can get stuff wrong sometimes.”

Lance’s heart pounded so heavily he swore his helmet was probably picking it up. “I guess so,” he said, about to hang up the line, when-

“And Lance?”

“Yeah?”

“For the record, you’re not stupid like Bob said. He got that wrong too. So.”

“Thank you,” said Lance, then ended the call before the butterflies in his stomach overwhelmed him.

***

The paladins had finally, _finally_ made it back to Earth. Lance couldn’t say it was everything he’d dreamed it would be - coming back to find Earth occupied and nearly defenseless was jarring at best - but in the moments between seeing his family for the first time in years, to being wrapped in a group hug so tight he couldn’t break free if he wanted to, Lance felt then that everything was right.

It wasn’t perfect, clearly. When Lance blinked through his tears enough to see again, he saw Shiro and Adam embracing each other so tightly he doubted they’d ever let go, saw Pidge reunited with both her parents at last, but he also saw Keith awkwardly sidelined by his brother and his brother’s fiance, Allura, Coran, and Romelle lost on this foreign planet, and Hunk strained nearly to his breaking point.

Gently, he pried away from his family’s embraces. “I’ll be right back,” Lance promised. “There’s something I have to do first,” he said, and walked over to his other family.

“Why don’t you leave those two lovebirds alone,” he suggested to Keith, who followed him after only a single tug on the sleeve.

“Don’t be strangers,” he said to the Alteans. “I promise, Earthlings don’t bite.”

“C’mere buddy,” he murmured to Hunk, grabbing his numb friend’s hand. “It’s going to be ok, I promise.”

Lance lead the misfit group of his new family back to his old one. When he entered the fold, he was immediately jumped on by his nephew and niece, but he told them to tackle his friends instead, and they gleefully obliged. And just like that, Allura, Romelle, Coran, and Keith were inducted into the Lance-family hug. Hunk lingered off to the side until he was pulled in by Lance’s mom, who he’d known since childhood. She wasn’t his mom, but she was family and hugged almost as well, and Hunk allowed himself to be accepted into the fold. It wasn't perfect, could never be perfect, but they were surrounded by family, and they were together, so it was close.

“It’s going to be ok,” Lance whispered. “No matter what happens, we’re home now. We’re home.”

***

They were about to leave for a dangerous scouting mission; Lance and Veronica were finishing packing the MFE fighter when Shiro approached them.

“Hey man,” said Lance. Veronica disappeared behind the vehicle, making herself busy. “What’s up?”

“I just wanted to wish you good luck out there,” Shiro said, not bothering to mask the pride on his face in the slightest. “I know coming back to Earth to find… this has been difficult for all of us, but you’ve been handling everything with maturity and skill. Even though I’m not a paladin anymore, and I’m not accompanying you out there, we’ve all got your back from here. You’ve proven yourself time and time again, and I know you’d never let us down. So go get ‘em!” he concluded, somewhat lamely, with a dopey smile and a cheesy fist pump.

Lance’s face was beet red and he felt as though he might cry, but instead he stepped down from the fighter and pulled Shiro into a tight hug. “It’s good to have you back, Shiro,” he said.

“It’s good to be back,” said Shiro, hugging Lance a little tighter.

They stood there for a second more until Shiro let go and made his way over to Allura, no doubt to give her a similar pep talk. Lance stood off to the side and composed himself until he was mostly back to normal, the ghost of a smile still on his face. He was about to talk to Veronica when he was approached again.

“Hi,” said Adam, a welcoming smile on his face. Lance had only talked to the guy a few times, but he felt like they were old friends, like was the kind of person he could tour a museum with and genuinely enjoy the experience. “I know I haven’t been with team Voltron this whole time, but I can see the way Shiro talks about his team - his _family_ \- and I just wanted to say, thank you. Thank you for bringing him back home to me.”

He looked off at Shiro, who was now hugging a crying Allura. Lance followed his gaze and let his smile grow on his face. “Of course. Family looks out for one another.”

“Then let’s kick some Galra butt,” Adam said, offering Lance a high five which he happily accepted.

“See? You’re one of the team already,” said Lance, climbing into the fighter. Veronica got in next to him and they exchanged a look which said more than words could. She powered up the fighter and they were off. Lance was going to save the world.

**Author's Note:**

> i ship klance till i die & i don't wanna disrespect allura bc she's the love of my life and deserves better. cRaZy idea: you can do both!! allura and lance's friendship is special to me, hence their scene. 
> 
> lance knows how to read ppl and he's very empathetic & that's mainly what i wanted to come through here. voltron did him dirty :(
> 
> also i didn't tag in the main ship tags bc although i love klance & romellura it was super background. if you wanna talk total season rewrites hmu on tumblr @rvdhoodlum i love to shout. thanks for reading my dudes peace out!


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